In early 2010, the SEC (see here) announced a series of measures “to further strengthen its enforcement program by encouraging greater cooperation from individuals and companies in the agency’s investigations and enforcement actions.”
The SEC’s then Director of Enforcement called the measures “a potential game-changer for the Division of Enforcement.”
Among the measures the SEC adopted was use of deferred prosecution agreements and non-prosecution agreements – resolution vehicles the SEC described as “tools [that] have been regularly and successfully used by the Justice Department in its criminal investigations and prosecutions” (which of course was and still remains a debatable point).
However, since this “game-changing” moment at the SEC over a decade ago, the agency has only used a DPA twice to resolve an issuer FCPA enforcement action and an NPA three times. Moreover, the SEC’s last use of an NPA or DPA to resolve an issuer FCPA enforcement was in mid-2016. All of which begs the question: is the SEC finished using NPAs and DPAs to resolve issuer FCPA enforcement actions?